Buccaneer

(Also Boucanier, Bucanier)

An english name for pirates cruising from Caribbean havens, including Port Royal, Tortuga Island, and Saint Domingue (modern Haiti). They primarily raided Spanish shipping and cities in the Caribbean and along the Mexican coast. From 1680 to 1688, many crossed the Panama isthmus and marauded along South America’s Pacific coast.

Buccaneer captains were mainly English, French, and Dutch. Their crews contained adventurers of all sorts, including Spanish renegades, African slaves, and American Indians. With this diverse group, Sir Henry Morgan captured Panama in 1671. French and English buccaneers continued to cruise in consort until the “Nine Years’ War” (1688-1697), when they were coopted by their respective governments as auxiliary naval forces.

Most buccaneers did not attack shipping of their own nation. When possible, they operated with privateering commissions, hoping that these would save them from hanging as pirates. During the 1660s and 1670s, Sir Thomas Modyford and other Jamaican governors gave out commissions to operate against the Spanish. The French governors of Tortuga and Petit Goâve continued to issue licenses into the 1680s. However, the buccaneers were true pirates who operated for their own account with or without such commissions.

The French word boucanier (“barbacuer”) originally referred to hunters who illegally camped in western Hispaniola (modern Haiti). (Some say the name is derived from the boucan on which these hunters smoked meat.) English writers began to use the same word to describe pirates operating from Haiti and other Caribbean bases. The name became common after 1684, when Exquemelin’s history was translated into English as The Bucaniers of America.

It is easy to understand why the English used the same word for the hunters and pirates. Although some pirates never were hunters, many hunters practiced piracy at one time or another. Nevertheless, French authors call the Caribbean pirates filibustiers (freebooters), the Dutch refer to them as Zee-roovers (sea rovers), and the Spanish prefer corsarios (corsairs). (Rogozinski, Buccaneers)

In the [17th] century, England, France, and the Netherlands made use of adventurers called buccaneers, who raided the Spanish Main, or Caribbean area. Buccaneering ranged through various shades of legality from legitimate privateering to pure piracy. One result of the activities of English buccaneers such as Sir Henry Morgan was that much of the West Indies became British.

During the Anglo-American War of 1812 the British tried to hire the Louisiana privateer Jean Lafitte. His decision to side with the Americans at the Battle of New Orleans (1815) was a potent factor in their victory. (Encyclopedia Americana, Pirate)

In 1671, the famous English buccaneer Henry Morgan led 2,000 other buccaneers in the looting and destrution of Panama City, Panama, then a Spanish territory. (World Book Encyclopedia, Pirate)